Now that we’ve reached the tentative end of the 2026 summer blockbuster season, it’s time to rejoice that “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” and “The Odyssey” made billions at the box office. Movie theaters might just be safe for the foreseeable future. However, wrapped inside that rejoicing is room to lament that so many indie and […]
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Sex, Drugs and Dinosaurs
An August movie roundup
With the release of “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” on July 31, we have officially left behind the Summer Blockbuster season and are now entering that nebulous August/September space where studios and streamers throw everything at the multiplex wall just to see what sticks. It’s not quite prestige, Oscar-bait season yet, so whatever movies you end […]
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The Peter Problem
“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” is a Marvel of human emotion
What makes Spider-Man the greatest superhero of all-time isn’t his ability to swing through New York City on sticky webs shot from his wrists, nor is it how he protects humanity from villains like Green Goblin and The Vulture. I mean, those feats are certainly impressive, but what makes Spider-Man the absolute best is his […]
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The Millennium Approaches
Angels in America comes to the Greenhouse Cabaret
Countless words have been written about what constitutes the “Great American Novel” and what that phrase even means given the vast breadth of literature published in the United States over the last few centuries. My own rubric has always been that the work must capture something quintessential—not just about life in America, but something profound […]
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A Social Battery Recharge
A few choices to stream at home this week
I’m not sure if everyone feels this way, but as much as I love going to the theater to watch new movies, my social battery is sometimes completely exhausted by the time Friday rolls around. My heart wants to spend a few hours in a room full of strangers, but my spirit just wants to […]
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Practical Magic
Nolan’s “The Odyssey” updates and enriches the epic poem
It’s deeply frustrating to be a film critic in the midst of an endless, exhausting culture war. The moment casting choices were announced for Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s “The Odyssey,” Earth’s first trillionaire tweeted that the filmmaker had “lost his integrity” by casting Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy. Predictably, the conservative half of […]
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An Awkward Dinner, Demi-gods and the Unquiet Dead
A very strange triple feature
When I go to the theater, I’m rarely there for just a single movie. I spend an inordinate amount of my life in dark rooms, staring at giant screens alongside strangers, all hoping to be transported out of the mundanity of existence. I think ultimately we all want to enter worlds that make us feel […]
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An Odyssey, a Dunesday and Everything In-Between
What films to anticipate in the second half of 2026
While the first half of the year hasn’t given us an overabundance of masterpieces, it has been a banner year for genre entertainment. From the meteoric rise of YouTube creators turning out horror blockbusters like “Obsession,” “Backrooms” and “Iron Lung,” to the deeply touching, humanistic “The Sheep Detectives,” and the jaw-dropping maximalist brilliance of “I […]
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To Infinity and Beyond
“Toy Story 5” and the evolution of play
I’ll be perfectly honest with you right now. The hardest I’ve ever cried in a movie theater was at the end of “Toy Story 3.” Rewatching it to prepare for the release of “Toy Story 5,” I figured it wouldn’t wreck me as badly as it did 16 years ago. I thought I was an […]
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The Great, the Terrible and the In-Between
Best (and worst) of the year…so far: 2026 Edition
Every July, I like to look back at the first half of the year to take the temperature of our current cinematic landscape. By this time last year, we already had the dizzying peaks of “Sinners” and “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl” and the subterranean lows of “Jurassic Park: Rebirth” and “Snow White.” Will 2026 […]
